Chapter 5 : To Harvest Battle
Abandoned Mine - first day
As Sera’s group approached the mine’s entrance they were greeted by giant armoured scorpions, giant spiders and some wild quill boars that got angry at their sudden invasion on the creatures territories.
“dismount go! don’t let them surround the steel wagons” Sera ordered
The first to dismount and started hacking and slashing were the Knight Golems , they maneuvered as one with shields locked against one another and bashing their enemies in front, once the monsters were staggered then they would stab at them.
The Inheritors were slow to form up behind the Knight Golems mostly the squires would only manage to finish off injured creatures while it was the apprentice mages were the ones that actually helped by throwing fireballs, barriers and earth spikes.
The Tempest on the other hand created their own battle line as they recognized the Knight Golems strength. the Dwarves smashed the scorpions with war hammers and hacked at the spiders with axes, the Elves were supporting the Dwarves from behind by giving them physical enchantment, barriers and well aimed arrows. Contrary to other mages the Elves don’t just waste energy throwing spells that might not hit or not enough to kill monsters in one or several hits they rely on their keen eyes striking at the well aimed vitals of the creatures incapacitating them if not outright killing them.
Tandtra would then shout at the Inheritors leader “Salazar watch you’re backs let the Golems take care of the front!” before returning to her own business.
After hearing that, Salazar commanded his team to turn about and started sniping at the creatures trying to go around them but before long his team could be heard grasping for breath they haven’t truly expected a prolonged continuous battle where the enemies would not let them take a breath “we are getting surrounded!” shouted Salazar.
Team Tempest would have broke their own formation to come to their aid when the Knight Golems adapted Shciltron Formation and activating their barrier spells embedded in their shields protecting the Inheritors.
Medusa then jumped right in when other groups were about to get surrounded using slow spells to their enemies and haste spells to allies,she would then jump in the middle of a cluster of monsters and use Snake Hairs to bite or crush nearby monsters.
In a few minutes the Inheritors finally got their second wind and are more organized and more concentrated in their attacks, Knight Golems broke their formation and started hunting fleeing monsters.
After an hour of fighting the giant armoured scorpions and the giant spiders skittered back into the mines hissing while the quill boars were hunted down before escaping, the forest wolves on the outskirts of the battle howled before leaving.
Only when the battle was over did Sera exited the APC and surveyed the area.
“take 15 minutes of break while the Knight Golems cut down some logs, we’ll work our way inside the mines tomorrow” she ordered.
The Inheritors sat down on the soil never minding the dirt grasping for breath. “that was a close one” said Terry as he laid down his staff breathing heavily.
While Salazar is wiping his own sweat “indeed, something to learn from at least”
“im just glad were alive!” said one of the squires.
Nearby the Tempest could be seen sweating but more relaxed, a mark of their experience in situations like this, They stood guard while the Knight Golems cut down logs and started constructing a Log Cabin big enough for all of them.
After the break the monster corpses were cleaned and buried except for the quill boar whose spines were usually good for primitive spears and arrowheads while its hide is thicker than most beast making it ideal use of winter clothing and its meat which is one of the only few clean and palatable sources of food in the area, there were several quill boars that the entire group could feast on for days.
The party roasted meat and ate quietly tired of the battle this afternoon they went to sleep early inside the cabin which is reinforced by four layers of logs unusually seen, which garnered attention from Tandtra as she inspected the interior..
“at least nothing would be sneaking inside this log cabin”
“don’t let you’re guard down I want four people on watch tonight starting with team tempest I made extra meal and warm milk maybe some ale for the night watch” Sera said
feeling something off “of course my Lady” Tandtra said before heading towards her team.
After everything is set for the night Sera returned to the APC and couldn’t help but shiver she thought “I cant believe they’re actually here” as sera watching through the eyes of Banshee 2 kilometers away from their camp another camp could be seen with campfires inside thick tents to prevent the fires being too visible.
“now there’s no turning back I prepared for this I set this up, I was chased before but no longer!. this might be stupid but I need a show of force” in her map it shows that Ashura, Torch Light, Riot and Vulcan followed by 500 wooden golems equipped with shields, spears and sword .
The wooden golems are mainly designed to look like mannequins they could wield weapons competently but their spell models were quite old very old in fact it was said that the spell model for wooden golems were created by a tribal genius who manage to get a hold of a dead mage’s books, it wasn’t long before an army of wooden golems were provided for his own tribe conquering the other tribals in the vicinity.
“the only reason I chose wooden golems was because wood is everywhere and its easier to work with wood, a single wooden golem only takes 10 minutes to actually carve and program with every sentinel not needing sleep they were working around the clock”
Their control crystals also did not need to be sophisticated even the lowest quality of control crystal would have worked fine making them ideal canon fodder, although weak they are still in a sense a force multiplier they can also help distract enemy soldiers while the sentinels go in for the priority targets. “It all started after the Kaladian raider’s success behind Lavant’s territory using my steel wagon that a surge of people started spying on me then came the contact with Marianne.”
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“That very same afternoon a message arrive at my tower confirming that Lavant spies were indeed interested in me and my creations it turns out they thought I was royal blood or something because of my airship or rather the crashed cargo plane, regardless of their reasoning. under any circumstance I cannot be a target. I needed a power play!… make them think that attacking me is not a good idea”
Sera Hawke thought that a showing force by destroying her would be captors would send a very powerful message that she is not one to be trifled with. The creation of 500 wooden golems were quite taxing in both resources and her energy but the payoff would be worth it, assuming she manage to deal a significant enough amount of damage to the enemy company.
Her big dilemma was how to control so many golems at once when 12 Knight Golems were already straining her. the solution she came up with was signal amplifiers, one of every ten golems would be made with a little special boosting signal which means better control crystal and mana stones and then Riot would carry a 5 meter long steel rod packed to max capacity with mana stones to power up 500 wooden golems whose orders would come from Riot which was relayed from Sera’s holographic interface which controls all her sentinels.
The steel rod with mana stones were inspired from the mages of her first encounter, and the reason mages could not control too many golems at once would be the brain’s ability to multitasking limitation. With some modern technology and clever programming these limitations could be bypassed.
At first Marianne offered her armies help but that would put Sera in Marianne’s debt so Sera tried to face the problem head on, lure the spies at least as many as she can and kill them all just to send a message and now her own army of wooden golems are awaiting orders to strike behind her enemies, of course her army wont move unless the enemy does. for all intents and purposes they are just humanoid shaped statues crouched and awaiting orders.
Abandoned Mine - second day
Aside from snakes and occasional shadows in the bushes the night passed on relatively peaceful the entire group did their morning rituals and prepared to enter the mine with Knight Golems taking the lead.
“alright! Like yesterday the Knight Golems would enter the mines as vanguard first team to accompany them would be team Tempest, after breakfast patrol around the area and digest your food then enter the mines, I will be inside the Log cabin controlling the golems”
Sera went and inspected the Knight Golems. Some have punctures and cuts but the control crystals are still not in immediate danger then she sent the golems inside the mine tunnels with their shield giving light, it doesn’t even need a light spell the mana crystal naturally gives a soft glow in the dark depending on the mana stone’s quality and poor quality ones tend to exude faint light and energies into their surrounding area.
Team Tempest just returned from their patrol and discovered that the Knight Golems already went ahead.
“aye, would those golems be alright they went ahead without us?” asked Gramel
Tandtra replied without stopping “lets go in the cabin and ask”
As they enter the cabin Medusa could be seen standing beside Sera Hawke and almost went in a defensive posture before going still, still controlling the Knight Golems through their eyes she asked.
“yes?… Do you need something?” while making a map through the holographic interface not even bothering to hide.
“umm… would the golems be fine going ahead of us? The food is still working its way down and we don’t want to go inside yet in fear of having stomach ache” Tandtra said as she stared at Sera
“it would be just fine, what im having them do is just mapping the tunnels some lead to a dead end while the deeper ones are marked and left alone for now” her eyes still locked on the interface occasionally making the golems stab deep into the walls and ground.
“right.. okay then we would go in the mine now just.. just don’t lead us to deep”
“of course I wont… that would be counter productive if possible we would just block the tunnels that lead to the monsters nest and start mining, and after you go out tell the Inheritors to cut more logs”
They felt relived hearing that and started their preparations to go inside the tunnels, the whole camp is busy at work while Sera is also secretly inspecting the Lavant company still laying low.
“they must be waiting for us to go inside the mines and attack when out guard is down”
It was past lunch when the Knight Golems and and team Tempest when they emerged from the mine tunnels covered in dust and some specks of monster gore in their clothing.
“damn! The tunnels are so stuffy its good the have fresh air at last.. I need a bath before eating lunch” said Verde before pulling Darma and Tandtra towards the river nearby.
Gramel and Dormo started removing their armours and started relaxing sore muscles, its not like it was a hard fight but constant combat readiness for hours is quite draining, even though the Knight Golems did most of the job.
Currently there are over a dozen tunnels leading too deep in the mines most of which are likely dug by its monster residents, those tunnels were blocked off by numerous thick logs along side wood shavings so that it would easier to burn should the need ever arise.
After team Tempest are done cleaning themselves team Inheritors now have gone inside the tunnels not to fight but to help inspect the quality of mana stones, so far no control crystals has been found yet, although there are some rough gems like Ruby which was not even a priority. They still kept the rubies on a pile as they dig in for mana stones deeper while the mages stand guard and use strength enchantment on the squires alongside the Knight Golems who swung their pickaxes mechanically.
With beads of sweat dripping on his forehead Salazar said “ well… at least our lives are not in danger” to keep up morale even though he still silently grumbles to himself he is still a nobles son third in line or not.
After a while 12 sacks of rough gems and low quality mana stones were finally harvested and the Knight Golems carried them out while the Inheritors were still mining since normal humans can’t actually compete in terms of strength and stamina against golems, not even 5 minutes the golems returned with empty sacks and started mining again.
It was late afternoon when team Tempest arrived with their own mining equipment, the Inheritors only have 70% of their sacks full.
“alright times up our turn, why don’t you kids go out and rest up the mine’s not going anywhere” said Gramel
One of the female apprentice mage said exasperated “ugh finally… this damn place is too stuffy I can’t wait to get out”
Gramel replied “yeah some air vents must have collapsed or has become covered with smaller monster creatures.. it is not unusual for these things to happen in a abandoned mine”
As the Inheritors were lugging their own haul Dormo then said “the gems are terribly low quality, if we are actually doing this we would be breaking our backs digging through this vein”
Already digging Darma then said “we’ll go for quantity then this shit still sell quick, its not like people are not going to use them when it comes to mana stones its always not enough!”
Gramel then said “fine fine.. lets get this over with and earn with the sweat of our brow, at least we are just digging and not fighting those creepy crawlies”
While the Knight Golems wield their pickaxes like clockwork in the mine tunnels, Medusa on the other hand has been cutting logs into multiple sharpened stakes some would be planted to the ground pointing outward some would be made short enough to be a javelin, the rest of the wood shavings would be used for the campfire.
The Inheritors were preparing the food for everybody while some are patrolling the perimeter wondering why this place has started to look like a wooden fort, but considering the recent attacks they thought it was better to be over defended than not.
Lavant Company Campsite
“why are we not attacking still? Couldn’t we just at least use the monster lure by now” asked one of the elite Knights of Lavant Kingdom.
Although a company commander has operational authority Lavant Kingdom’s Magic Knights are only second to the General.
The company commander just gritted his teeth swallowing his anger “ I’ve said it before we must wait when their guard is down, and that time would be when they are overburdened by their harvest and their bodies tired of fighting tunnel critters and mining”
“hmp! It sounds like you’re just afraid company commander your title is wasted on you” said the Knight before leaving the tent.
“damn this people all they know is to charge headlong into battle, you there!” as he pointed to a mage on the side
“whats going on in their camp?”
The mage replied “our tamed creatures are getting killed on sight we don’t have a direct view inside their camp but they seem to be fortifying their camp they also made a rather fortified Log Cabin”
“hmmm” as the company commander studied the local map “tsk! The Knights are getting restless any longer and they might attack without coordination, waiting is enough tell the entire camp that we will be setting up the monster lure tomorrow morning and attack at dusk”
Outside the camp soldiers running about could be seen preparing for the coming fight while the Magic Knights have been delighted that their long wait will soon come to an end and they will draw blood with their swords to claim honor and glory.
Abandoned Mine - third day
4:00 am Banshee sent an alarm. Lavant campsite are moving out, Sera reviewed the images and saw what appears to be a monster lure according to Narud’s library.
“they couldn’t wait any longer huh” she thought as she prepared a hot meal for everyone
Meanwhile the Knight Golems have entered the cabin and woke everybody, the groggily awakened adventurers were still finding their footing when Sera said.
“we are about to get attacked by a monster horde” she said in all seriousness
“what? How did you know?” asked Verde as she took a bite at her breakfast
Sera wasted no time and showed the group of monsters through the holographic image starting to form a horde starting from several packs of forest wolves, sabretooth tigers, forest trolls and even some ogres.
The first to panic were the Inheritors already suggesting that they run, but then Sera said.
“ even if you want to run we are in the middle of the forest and the steel wagons can’t maneuver as fast not to mention we have to move in single file making us a bigger target. We already have a fortified position the monster nests in the tunnels have been blocked securely, and we have dug ditches with spike traps and spike walls all we need is for the mages to raise a mud wall even a meter tall would do, and lastly the tunnel mines would serve as a bottle neck making their numbers inconsequential”
With furrowed brows Tandtra said solemnly “you’re awfully prepared for this” garnering the attention of Gramel.
Sera stared at her eyes and said “I prepared for the worst and hoped for the best. Now lets get the mages prepare that mud wall while I’ll have the Knight Golems cut down more Logs. GO!”
With that. roars and howls of the incoming monster horde could be heard. Sera Hawke made a gamble a CHOICE to stand and fight, now each players decks have been stacked with as much advantages as they can get and now the time has come to show their hands.